[HLUG] Topics at Meetings

[Richard Smedley]

Malcolm Herbert wrote:
> I'm also a non-attender at HLUG meetings (usually through work/travel)
> commitments, but a follower of HLUG discussions. 

Hello Malcolm,

Very long time, no see!

Likewise, I used to get around various LUGs quite often,
but haven't been to Hereford since the plug was pulled on
the MOST project some years ago, and now just make the
occasional online contribution.

> Like Matt, my world is server/configuration/management and increasingly
> virtualisation, for server workloads and environments. Big things in the
> Linux IT world at the moment are consolidation, operation efficiency,

There's certainly more discussion needed on this - e.g. the
greater efficiency of openVZ over many other solutions.
Data Center efficiency (centring on PSUs, CPU, disks, cooling &
virtualisation) will become more important as carbon taxes come in
- unless we all move the data centres to Iceland, of course ;-)

> I'd be also interested in providing a market update and review of the
> commercial world of Linux (its still smaller than that of commercial
> Unix's globally) as well as key technology (puppet is one). Novell /
> Suse is dead 

In Germany as well?

>(and we can discuss why),

In the same way as MS is dead? (Will take decades to die,
but the ground has shifted beneath it).

> perhaps we can arrange something and I'll look to plan to attend and
> provide a presentation and lively discussion. Other LUGs (like London
> and Surrey) have lots of people who make a living from Linux 

& elsewhere, naturally (see below).

> On Fri, 2010-02-19 at 09:47 +0000, Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:

Hello Matthew,
This is a coincidence - LinkedIn has just thrown your
name at me in a list of people it suggests that I
should connect with. #SocialMediaCoincidences :)

>> I often feel that far from being a "Linux User Group" community in  
>> this country (and I do mean the whole of the UK here), we are rapidly  
>> becoming a "Ubuntu User Group" and that is not what I'm looking for at  
>> a meeting.

Local BSD groups went through this with MacOS a few
years ago. The irony is that some of them are now
so annoyed with Apple they've gone to Ubuntu =^)

>> 1) If there is interest in how to run a Linux server for fun and  
>> profit, or people would like to know more about securing and  
>> monitoring servers I'm more than happy to do a talk/presenation.

Sounds good. There are few evenings when I'm not working as
an unpaid taxi driver - taking the kids to various band
rehearsals, sports events, etc., but it's the kind of
event I'd come to if I could - does that count as a
positive vote for your talk? ;-)

Another change in the LUG landscape that you may not
have noticed so much is the shift to web-based industries'
groups. GeekUp [1] holds monthly meetings in Manchester,
Preston, Chester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, and now
Grimsby.

Hardware hacking has brought a combination of techies
and artists to hackspaces [2]. Indeed a combination of the
above two will happen next month when, at the border
of Shrops, Staffs & Cheshire, a new GeekUp group
will meet in Alsager partly to discuss the new
Shropshire Hackspace [3] & a possible Stoke-On-Trent
group.

With many who work all day with servers going to
GeekUp or Hackspaces in the evening, and many new
GNU/Linux users coming along, it's probably natural
that LUGs are becoming so Ubuntu-focussed - but
that doesn't prevent them covering anything else,
of course :)

>> As I said at the beginning, I've probably offended someone by the  
>> above and to put it bluntly the level of discussions generally at  
>> meetings tend to be on getting the GUI working as opposed to the  
>> technical in depth discussions that I crave, but that's probably just  
>> me! :)

Not just you, don't worry. Last time I went to
a SC.LUG meeting in Cheshire there were people
reminiscing toggling the instructions in in Octal! :-)

  - Richard

[1] http://geekup.org/
[2] http://hackspace.org.uk/
[3] http://groups.google.com/group/salop-hackspace/

-- 
Richard Smedley         Social Media & Accessible Web for small Orgs
                                         http://GoodGNUs.org/courses

http://twitter.com/RichardSmedley          Sustainable 3rd Sector IT
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardsmedley
                                    http://identi.ca/richardsmedley/